FG Sets Up Legal Task Force To Combat Oil Theft Worried that the country is being robbed of about 400,000 barrels of oil per day, totalling about N7billion daily, by crude oil thieves, the federal government yesterday resolved to set up a legal task force to commence prosecution of proven cases. The task force, to be headed by the attorney-general of the federation (AGF), will employ relevant laws, particularly the Miscellaneous Offences Act to prosecute oil thieves. The Act carries a sentence of 21 years imprisonment without option of fine. This was the decision taken after a sub-committee earlier set up and chaired by Akwa Ibom State Governor Godswill Akpabio rose from a technical level meeting involving key stakeholders, where concerned agencies including security outfits made useful submissions, with more inputs from other stakeholders, especially from the oil producing states. Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan told State House Correspondents after the monthly National Economic Council (NEC) meeting that the governors of Bayelsa and Delta states had been mandated to meet with the concerned oil majors and the JTF to work out modalities for the effective repair of the Nembe and Trans Niger pipelines which are currently shut. He said NEC, chaired by Vice President Namadi Sambo, also mandated the Akwa Ibom Governor Godswill Akpabio, Secretary to National Planning Commission, the NEITI chief executive and a representative of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) to meet with the AGF to agree on how to strengthen the extant deterence policy by ensuring more arrests and convictions of the oil thieves. The meeting had produced the resolution of setting up the legal task force. Briefing journalists alongside the governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako, and their Gombe counterpart, Ibraham Dankwambo, as well as minister of National Planning, Shamsudeen Usman, and the minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike, Uduaghan listed members of the legal task force to include representatives from the NNPC, the Armed Forces, Civil Defence, Police, SSS and other related agencies. He said while the task force will operate for one year with effect from July, 2013, its members are to be announced by the AGF on Monday, July 22, 2013, and prosecution of established cases will continue, with convictions given wide publicity. Minister Nyesom Wike also presented an update on the status of the almajiri education programme, saying two weeks after the Muslim fasting, the 80 schools already built nationwide as part of the effort towards addressing the problem of the high number of out-of-school children would be handed over to the states. On the contentious issue of grazing reserve, Nyako noted that the cows should be on ‘zero’ grazing just as horses that are fed in their stables, arguing that roaming the countryside for fodder was unproductive and no longer acceptable, as it promotes friction and clashes between cattle rearers and farmers. He added that grazing reserves now overgrown by weeds should be recultivated with improved varieties of grass. Source :#Leadership
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 09:02:23 +0000
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